


00.02 Purgatory - Him

by Raziel



Series: 00 The Time In Between [2]
Category: 19th Century CE RPF
Genre: Vicbourne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 04:52:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13495318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raziel/pseuds/Raziel
Summary: Takes place before Blurred Lines.





	00.02 Purgatory - Him

**Melbourne**

Rusticating at Brocket Hall did little to soothe the spirit, save add intolerable boredom and frustration at being too far removed from matters which required immediate oversight to his already low spirits. _So much for licking my wounds in peace,_ he thought as he instructed his valet to pack his things a scant five days after arriving. His pretense of _ennui_ was only that, an affectation, despite his oft-repeated claim that governing was a dead bore. Melbourne acknowledged his own addiction to the heady demands of office, not for power or glory or advancement, but for the rigorous application of intellect, quick wit and an artfully strategic mind to the complex problems presented. _When the mind was fully challenged, the heart necessarily occupied a less demanding space._

Tom Young was an admirably resourceful young man, but had hardly the polish to recommend him to the Crown. His report on the sole interview he’d had with the Queen was woefully inadequate, brevity and a lack of nuance providing none of the tone of the thing. He called his nephew William in to take charge the role of _liaison_ between the Prime Minister’s Office and Her Majesty. William remarked upon his charge only to question how long, if asked, he would be performing the office. To that Melbourne replied only “Until further notice.” _Demands of the House. Bills which require my full attention._ He sat down to write a summary report to Her Majesty on the treaty of Waitangi, intending both brevity and a neutral colorless tone. _A majority of the Maori chiefs agree to cede sovereignty of the islands to Your Majesty. In exchange they ask a guarantee of protection from French troops and the primacy of their own lands. Settlers newly arrived would be given safe passage._ Finally he shoved the sheaf of reports over to William and told him to _write the damn thing yourself_ and _don’t prose on when you address the Queen and strive for more color, less dry detail._ _Describe the chiefs, Hōne Heke, Pumuka, Te Wharerahi, Tamati Waka Nene and his brother Eruera Maihi Patuone gathering on Busby’s lawn. The Queen has an active imagination and an eager mind but she responds best to an engaging, descriptive approach._

William grew impatient and with the audacity of a favored nephew put Melbourne on the spot.

“Sir, there are no upcoming debates and little that requires your immediate personal attention here. I don’t see why you don’t go yourself. Tom said she asked for you.”

Melbourne knew he couldn’t stay away indefinitely, and knew he was eminently capable of maintaining an appropriate distance and addressing her with bland congeniality. Truth was, every feeling clamored to go, if only for the proximity, no matter how badly it would lacerate his sore heart. _Soon_ , he thought, _soon I will have to return. But not yet._ Encounter her freshly back from her wedding night? Witness her bridal blushes, the inevitable changes he would see in her and know what wrought them? Not yet, not quite yet. _Let it be for a time. I’ve earned that._

“You’ll do fine, William. Her Majesty is no ogre, she is a delightful young woman. Now go. And please offer my felicitations. No, wait –“ He couldn’t bear to snub her completely and so scrawled the briefest of notes.

_Your Majesty,_

_Lord Melbourne begs leave to offer his felicitations to Your Majesty and His Highness. I’m sure you will forgive my attention to the demands of your Government which render me unable to attend you at the present. Pray address any questions you have to Mr. Cowper, an able enough young man._

_Respectfully,_ _Melbourne_

 

Lady Emily Holland was the dearest of friends, as was her husband Henry, and their home always where the most fruitful political dialogue took place. So much of Melbourne’s personal and political history had happened there that it was his refuge of first resort when in town. The route there from Dover House took him past the Palace, and he was half-tempted to give an order they should go through the park instead. At dusk, all the windows alight, it was all he could do not to lean forward for a glimpse of the interior in hopes of seeing the small figure he longed for.

“William, my dear!” Lady Holland cooed. The dinners at Holland House were stimulating affairs for all their informality, and Melbourne looked forward to the distraction provided by lively erudite conversation. “I am so glad to see you back in town. You chose a rather inopportune time to leave. We are all agog to hear of doings at the Palace.” She hooked her arm through his companionably and had him lead her into dinner, seated him at her right. He exchanged greetings with the familiar faces, Holland House habitués, poets and literary lions, other Whig politicians.

“Is the _German_ boy as crude and bourgeois as we hear?”

“Sussex says he disapproves of all levity and thinks the Court not _serious_ enough.”

“A regular prude, so they say.”

“Might be a prude but Bessborough heard from someone at his club the boy has already discovered Marlborough Street.”

“I’ve heard it’s another locale he frequents, and another class of company altogether.”

“I’ve always heard those Germans with their tutors claim to despise the frivolity of the fair sex but really, it’s the charms of their own sex they prefer.”

“Does this marriage at least release you of nursery duty?”

“You’ve spent most of your days at Her Majesty’s beck and call these past two years. At least the boy’s relieved you of that. No more tedious evenings forgoing the real pleasures of adult company, eh?” Melbourne let the clamor of voices wash over him, responding with a noncommittal incline of his head to one, a gently arched brow to another. This last he couldn’t let stand, and even as he damned himself for a fool in not remaining silent, he responded, “Sir, advising the Queen has been the greatest honor of my life and career.”

“Of course, old boy, of course. You’ve made a Whig of her, and that’s a job well done.”

“I hear Peel thinks to make a Tory of the German boy. Their sentiments run along the same plebian lines. He’s over there daily succoring our Prince Consort.”

“Melbourne, if that is the case I think it’s time you remember where your duty to Party lies and get yourself out of Dover and back to the Palace,” Henry, Lord Holland intoned. He had been Melbourne’s mentor Fox’s old protégé and his words held some weight. “We can tolerate a two-party system but not a two-party throne. Her little Majesty must shape her husband’s opinions and not the other way around or your work in tutoring her has been wasted.”

Hearing Victoria discussed in any terms gave Melbourne a perverse thrill, that of a schoolboy hearing the name of his crush spoken aloud, but his protective instincts – and a strong vein of possessiveness, truth be told – took over.

“Her Majesty is not as easily swayed as you might think, gentlemen and –“ he inclined his head to acknowledge Lady Holland. “lady. She has a very strong, well-formed character to which I only contributed bits of reason here and there. You fear for naught, if you think she will be swayed by the Prince, or Peel.”

Lady Holland examined him closely for a long moment and then, with the ease of an accomplished hostess, turned the conversation to the subject of a notorious French émigré embroiled in another scandal. She kept the conversation going with deft turns of topic throughout dinner and Melbourne was able to enjoy the evening quite well, lounging and laughing, his feet propped on one of Lady Holland’s drawing room chairs.

He was one of the last to take his leave and Lady Holland took advantage of the thinning company to sidle up to him and address him in her softest, purring tones.

“William, you seem rather _dépité_ this evening. Is something troubling you?” He looked down and saw her expression was kindly, even a touch concerned.

“Not at all, ma’am, why should I be? Only perhaps idleness does not agree with me. I must be more vain than I thought, because I sometimes miss being attended to.”

“And now you think yourself replaced, superfluous?” She laughed gaily, a most charming sound from a most charming woman, Melbourne thought fondly. “William! How _can_ you assume such an air of false modesty? It does not quite become you.”

“I’m afraid I don’t take your meaning, Emily.”

“ _Everyone_ knows the Queen positively dotes on you. No one, certainly not a very young woman, can turn off feelings of such extreme attachment or break a habit of such tenacity as she developed for your companionship. She needs you, William, and you I think need her. Why this ridiculous display of detachment?”

Melbourne smiled tightly. “The Queen must depend on her husband now, ma’am. Isn’t that what husbands are for?”

“William, that you of all people can say something so absurd tells me you are not yourself. Since when has marriage meant _that_? For any of us, much less a sovereign making a state marriage? I confess, my marriage to Henry has been an abnormally happy one but that, as you know, came after much early heartache. And you _know_ how we had to fight to be together, that I am still not considered respectable to the ladies of our acquaintance. So the Queen had to wed her cousin, a penniless younger son chosen for her…” Lady Holland shrugged, a very Gallic gesture. “He can hardly replace her Lord M so please spare me the long face. Since when in our lifetimes has an arranged marriage spelled the end of other, far deeper connections? I would rather say, such a marriage can be the _beginning f_ or two people who care about each other deeply. I can cite you many examples but that would be unnecessary so I refer you only to your dear sister Emily and Palmerston. William, your party needs you back at the Palace and I say as a woman, your _Queen_ needs you.” Melbourne’s expression was frozen, his eyes icy slits, but it did nothing to quell the warm look his companion directed at him.

“I bid you good night, Madame.” He bowed most formally and departed, seething. Behind him, he heard Emily’s trilling laughter.

When he left Holland House Melbourne had every intention of returning directly to Dover House and assiduously working to empty a bottle of brandy before the fire. When he was nearly home he impulsively leaned out the window and gave an entirely different address.

His next destination was a discreet well-appointed house in Cavendish Square. The abbess who greeted him was all quiet dignity, a duchess in her own mind entertaining a peer. He was regarded as an easy, well-paying patron and his few demands were carried out with alacrity behind the scenes upon his arrival. A particular girl would have been sent off as soon as he arrived, and she would be somewhere in the back of the house scrubbing her face of paint, stripping off her bright silk raiment, brushing loose her tight fashionable curls with the assistance of the understairs girl clients never saw, all those accommodations to his preference. He was shown to an upstairs parlor, served fine cognac and in discreet well-bred silence, an actress playing a role, she would enter silently, walking with grace, fresh faced and smelling of only rosewater, her gown simple and refined. She would gracefully kneel before him and perform the only service he could tolerate, one which demanded nothing of him, and he would look down at the dark head and weep.

How Melbourne found himself in Caroline Norton’s drawing room in the weeks that followed, he would never clearly recall later.

Her letters had never stopped, imprecations and endearments intertwined, but he’d scrupulously avoided her since the trial. Now though, despite the press of business in government and delightful hospitality of a higher order at Holland House, he found himself at Mrs. Norton’s once more, drowsing on her couch, watching as she delicately prepared the absinthe concoctions her young admirers expected, smiling drowsily as she flirted – no, ardently pursued – tokens of his reignited affection.

 _Foolish arrogant woman._ _How can she claim to know me better than anyone else does, when she can’t see what’s right in front of her?_  He thought perhaps she did. A ferociously bright, undeniably charming woman, regarded as beautiful, she was a huntress by nature, wanting what was denied her. And always, whether reeling at the loss of Caro, of Augustus some years later, or now, always when she knew him his desire might be present at her coaxing, his wit and bright analytical mind at her service, but always he had denied her his heart. It was never his to give and since he offered no false promises, he considered her well able to take or leave the bargain they made. She never once denied herself to him, would harangue even as she made aggressive love to him. He found her as amusing in her rancor as he did in her affection, considered her avaricious opportunism a quaintness. But that she never breached the defenses of his heart, never had and now, never would, to that she appeared oblivious, her vanity as much a shield as his emotional detachment.

As he became a fixture once more his presence was noted. Disraeli again migrated to his side at every gathering. _A most tiresomely enthusiastic young man. Must he be a veritable zealout on every single opinion he holds? And he holds so many!_ The new generation of poets, of whom Mrs. Norton was an especial patroness, frequently filled her room of a night, bringing with them the waxy opium nuggets they dropped into the water pipe Caroline kept prominently placed. They too were drawn to Melbourne, perversely considering his connection to their hero Byron an honor to which he must surely be sensible, asking for tidbits, observations, his own recollections of the man. This line of questioning Melbourne found   _très amusant_ and he exerted himself to provide the most ludicrous answers possible.

Caroline Norton was commonly held to be an extremely talented poet, a literary genius, and her biting commentary on the ills of society as much as the sharply worded letters she published decrying the evils of marriage and child custody law, might have warned him that she was perforce making voluminous journal entries on the resumption of their affair in those weeks after the Queen’s marriage. Later, Melbourne would only assume it was his essential distractedness as much as what sister Emily rued as an urge to self-destruction that rendered him blind to the obvious conclusion, that as before, this affair would come back to haunt him at the most inopportune time.


End file.
